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What Does a Top Ranked Farm System Get You? - Part 2

Took longer than I anticipated to put together the second part of this, but here goes.

Part 1 looked at how the players of top ranked farm systems panned out. Part 2 focuses on the more important aspect, how did the teams actually do. Did having a #1 ranked farm system lead to fame, fortune, and World Series victories?

My hypothesis was that a year or two before reaching #1 ranked farm system status, the team had to be bad. Bad enough to get top draft picks. Then 3-5 years after achieving the ranking, once the farm system came to fruition, teams should find success.

Here’s the data:

Year
-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
2004 Brewers 28 26 26 15 24 14 6 17
2005 Angels 19 6 3 7 3 1 2 17
2006 Diamondbacks 30 20 23 5 16 25 28 6
2007 Rays 27 30 30 3 15 2 7 9
2008 Rays 30 30 3 15 2 7 9 9
2009 Rangers 20 18 9 8 3 7 10 28
2010 Rays 3 15 2 7 9 9 20 17
2011 Royals 26 26 24 23 13 7 4 16
2012 Rangers 8 3 7 10 28 8 2
2013 Cardinals 8 12 2 5 1 12
2014 Pirates 18 5 9 2 18
2015 Cubs 27 23 3 1
2016 Dodgers 4 6 6

The "Year" (-2 to 5) across the top refers to years prior to and after achieving the #1 ranked system. So for the 2004 Brewers for example, 2004 refers to year 0 when they were ranked #1. -2 would be 2002, 5 would equate to 2009.

The numbers under the years are the winning % ranking of the major league team that season. Again, using the Brewers as an example, in year "0" (2004), they had the 26th best record in baseball.

The colors. Blue means the team made the playoffs that season. Orange means they made it to the World Series and Red means they won the whole thing. Hey, look at that, its hard to win a World Series!

The Rays and Rangers kind of throw a wrench into the original hypothesis because they kept getting ranked as having the top farm system. If you notice from above, this also leads to quite a few World Series appearances BEFORE (6 of the 8 shown here) or soon after their top ranking. In general, they seem to follow the pattern, but I decided to remove them from the list to see if that more clearly demonstrated what I figured would occur.

Year
-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
2004 Brewers 28 26 26 15 24 14 6 17
2005 Angels 19 6 3 7 3 1 2 17
2006 Diamondbacks 30 20 23 5 16 25 28 6
2011 Royals 26 26 24 23 13 7 4 16
2013 Cardinals 8 12 2 5 1 12
2014 Pirates 18 5 9 2 18
2015 Cubs 27 23 3 1
2016 Dodgers 4 6 6

The 2004 Brewers (who’s ranking was led by Weeks, Fielder and Hardy) and 2011 Royals (Hosmer, Myers, and Moustakas) most closely followed the path I anticipated. Both were among the bottom teams leading up to their ranking and then broke through and made the playoffs 3 to 4 years afterwards. In the Brewers case all three were key components in their playoff run in 2008. In the case of the Royals, Hosmer and Moustakas were key components and Myers was traded for James Shields to help get them over the top.

The other cases are interesting:

The Angels were coming off a top 3 record in 2005. The farm system produced a lot of depth (Casey Kotchman, Erick Aybar, Howie Kendrick, Ervin Santana, Kendrys Morales, Alberto Callaspo) that helped sustain that success for quite some time and even led to the best record in baseball in 2008. Of all the teams here they had the most regular season success but never made it to the World Series.

The Diamondbacks are an interesting case. Their winning % spiked one season, in part because their #1 ranked system was filled with guys from the upper minors in 2006. Seven of the top 10 guys played a role in 2007 (Stephen Drew, Conor Jackson, Chris Young, Carlos Quentin, Miguel Montero, Justin Upton, Dustin Nippert). They then struggled the following three seasons before suddenly reviving in 2011. Arguably the best player from their farm system in 2006 never actually played for Arizona as Carlos Gonzalez was traded for Dan Haren after the 2007 season.

The Cardinals mostly do Cardinals things. The strength gained from eating babies far exceeds anything a top ranked farm system can provide. Neither of the 2 top ranked players from that 2013 system are still with the Cardinals. Shelby Miller was traded away and we’ll never know how Oscar Tavares would have panned out.

The other three teams are still to early to see the long term 3-5 year window plays out. The Pirates and Dodgers both had good teams before achieving the top ranking. Seems like they are now heading in different directions.

Of the 8 teams who have passed through the 3-5 year window in its entirety, of a possible 26 seasons, 12 times a team made the playoffs. The good news Brewers fans is that every one of these teams made the playoffs at least once during the 3-5 year "window". Here’s to hoping this plays out for the 2019-2022 Brewers as well.